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CHOPE Fellow 2017-18 Yutaka Furuya

Yutaka Furuya is associate professor of the history of economic thought at Tohoku University in Sendai City, Japan. Yutaka has a long-standing interest in eighteenth-century British economic thought, especially the economics of Sir James Steuart. At the Center, Yutaka’s work has focused on tracing the process through which Sir James formed his monetary theory. Reflecting on his experiences at the Center, Yutaka remarks that he “would like to bring back to Japan the Center’s style of discussion and its ways of organizing workshops and conferences.”

Yutaka is passionate about promoting transnational exchange among historians of economic thought and the Center’s international community has served as a springboard in that direction: “I am one of the council members of JSHET [the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought] and I belong to the events and interaction committee. My current duty there is to promote JSHET’s international relationships. At Duke and at Toronto, I had a chance to discuss this issue with many people, including Hans-Michael Trautwein [of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought], members of the Adam Smith Society, and many scholars at the Center who are important members of the Latin American Society for the History of Economics.”

Yutaka came to Duke with his family and he describes their experiences here as “truly fantastic!” He explains, “The Triangle area has this perfect combination of intellectual atmosphere, southern hospitality, and a slow tempo lifestyle. We resided in Chapel Hill and my family blended in with the community without any difficulty. Since our son was six years old and our daughter one, our son’s school life was at the center of our family life. I think my wife and our son did a great job of engaging with the classmates and their families.”